Foundation advisors bring knowledge, expertise, and experience to the issue areas addressed by Columbia Foundation. They serve in an advisory capacity to the foundation's board of directors and staff through participation on the foundation's program and investment committees as volunteers.

Current advisors include:

Arts and Culture

Frances Phillips

Frances Phillips is senior program officer for arts and humanities at the Walter and Elise Haas Fund in San Francisco, and Director of the Creative Work Fund, a collaborative funding initiative supporting new works by San Francisco and Alameda county-based artists. Previously, Frances was executive director of Intersection for the Arts – San Francisco’s oldest alternative arts organization – from 1988 to 1994; director of The Poetry Center and American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University from 1985 to 1988; and assistant director of The Poetry Center (overseeing California Poets in the Schools) between 1982 and 1985. From 1977 to 1984 she was an associate and partner in Horne, McClatchy & Associates, a public relations firm that specialized in fundraising for nonprofit organizations.

Tom Price

Tom Price studied economics and history of art at Gonville & Cauis College, Cambridge (UK). He is now an investment banker, for Westhouse Securities based in London. He advises entrepreneurial and growth companies, helping them design and execute strategies for growth, principally using the equity capital markets.

He has a particular specialisation in U.K. media and leisure companies, and has also advised Chinese and Indian enterprises in various sectors in recent years. Companies he has advised range from Bloomsbury Publishing, the publisher of Harry Potter, through online portals and TV production companies, chains of pizza/pasta and dim sum restaurants, to Eros International, the world's largest distributor of Bollywood movies. He sits on various industry committees and regularly speaks at financial seminars and conferences. He maintains an interest and active involvement in design and architecture; and the performing and visual arts.

Stephen Taylor

After studying literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, Stephen Taylor worked as an assistant director at the Geneva Grand Théâtre, working with directors such as Nicholas Hytner, Matthias Langhoff and Benno Besson. For over ten years he has regularly collaborated with Pierre Strosser in Geneva, Strasbourg, Lyon, and Paris. In September 1997, he revived Pierre Strosser’s production of Der Fliegende Holländer at the San Francisco Opera. Since 1998, he has regularly worked with the young singers at the Centre de Formation Lyrique of the Paris Opera, directing semi-stagings of La Traviata, Faust, Werther, Les Pêcheurs de Perles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Don Pasquale and Roméo et Juliette. He recently directed Idomeneo at the Opéra National de Lyon, and The Rape of Lucretia in Colmar, Mulhouse and Strasbourg, and Don Pasquale in Aix-les-Bains.

Food and Farming

Claire Cummings

Claire Cummings is a lawyer and journalist. She was an attorney for the United States Department of Agriculture during the 1980's and then practiced environmental and native land rights law for over twenty years. She has farmed in California and in Vietnam, where she had an organic farm along the Mekong River in the early 1990’s. Claire has served on the board or as general counsel for environmental organizations, including The Cultural Conservancy (which she also founded), Earth Island Institute, The Elmwood Institute, Food First, and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. As a print and broadcast journalist, she covers stories about the health, environmental, and political implications of how we eat. She has been reporting on agricultural biotechnology for over ten years, including three cover-feature articles for the international environmental journal WorldWatch as well as “A Farmer's Guide to GMOs” for Farm Aid and The National Family Farm Coalition, and the Environmental Media Service's "Reporter's and Editor's Guide to Genetic Engineering in Agriculture." For six years Claire produced and hosted a popular weekly radio show in Northern California, including a news segment called “Eater’s Digest.” She regularly reports on agriculture and the environment for public television in San Francisco. In 2001, she was awarded a 2001 Food and Society Policy Fellowship, sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation. Her latest book is the critically acclaimed Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds, a book that has been compared to Rachel Caron's Silent Spring.

Paul Hawken

Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist and best-selling author. He writes and teaches about the impact of commerce on the environment and consults with governments and corporations on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. He is author and co-author of seven books, including The Next Economy (1983), Growing a Business (1987), and The Ecology of Commerce (1993), Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999) with Amory Lovins, and his latest book Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement In the World Came Into Being and Why No One Saw it Coming (2007). Mr. Hawken founded or co-founded several companies including: Groxis, a graphic information delivery provider; Metacode, a software company; Smith & Hawken, a garden and catalog retailer; and several of the first U.S. natural foods companies that rely solely on sustainable agricultural methods. Mr. Hawken has publicly addressed the topic of business, the environment, and social justice for more than twenty years.

Desmond Jolly

Desmond Jolly was raised on a family farm in Jamaica. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics at Utah State in 1965, a master’s degree in economics and a doctorate from the University of Oregon. After teaching experiences at the University of District of Columbia in Washington, D.C., and at Harvard University, in 1971 he became an extension specialist in consumer economics at UC Davis. Jolly served on the California Department Food and Agriculture consumer advisory committee and, in 1980, was appointed by Governor Edmund Brown, Jr. to the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, the highest public advisory board on agriculture in the state. Four years later, Jolly was appointed to the California Export Market Incentive Program Advisory Board. In 1995, Jolly was named director of the UC Small Farm Program, which was created by the California Legislature to enhance the viability of small- and moderate-scale agricultural producers by stimulating research and extension education in production systems, marketing and farm management. The program includes six county-based farm advisors who interact directly with small-scale producers and the Small Farm Workgroup, which pools the research and extension expertise of a wide variety of academic and industry professionals. In 1997, Jolly was appointed vice chair of the National Commission on Small Farms by then Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman. The commission conducted hearings around the country to learn about the state of small farming in America and how the USDA was serving needs of this segment of the ag industry. The commission issued a report, “A Time to Act,” in 1998 with 146 recommendations, many of which were accepted and acted upon by the USDA. In 2003, Jolly was a founding member of the Roots of Change Council, (promotes California as the first sustainable-agriculture- and food-system state in the nation) and co-chaired the Council in 2005-2007. Jolly’s distinguished career has been recognized with numerous awards, most recently the “Hero of the Valley” award from the Great Valley Center. Following his retirement, Jolly is continuing his public service work. He currently sits on two boards: the Center for Urban Education on Sustainable Agriculture, which operates the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market in San Francisco and offers educational programs about sustainable agriculture; and California FarmLink, a non-profit organization promoting techniques and information that preserve family farming and farmland conservation in California.

David Mas Masumoto

David Mas Masumoto is an organic peach and grape farmer and the author of Letters to the Valley, A Harvest of Memories (2004). His previous books include Four Seasons in Five Senses, Things Worth Savoring (2003), Harvest Son, Planting Roots in American Soil (1998) and Epitaph For A Peach: Four Seasons on My Family Farm (1995). A third generation farmer, Masumoto grows certified organic peaches, nectarines, grapes and raisins. He works with his family on their organic 80 acre farm south of Fresno, California and also helps care for his parents who still live on the family farm. Masumoto is currently a columnist for and The Fresno Bee has written for USA Today and The Los Angeles Times. His other books include Silent Strength (1984), Home Bound (1989) and Country Voices, The Oral History of a Japanese American Family Farm Community (1987). He received the James Clavell Japanese American National Literacy Award in 1986. Epitaph for a Peach won the 1995 Julia Child Cookbook Award in the Literary Food Writing category and was a finalist for the 1996 James Beard Foundation Food Writing Award. It was also received the San Francisco Review of Books Critics' Choice Award 1995-96. A German translation edition of Epitaph for a Peach was published in 1997. Harvest Son won a Commonwealth Club of California silver medal for the California Book Awards in 1999 and was a finalist for the Asian American Writers' Workshop award in New York. In 2002, Masumoto was appointed to the James Irvine Foundation Board of Directors. He also serves on the board of the Campaign for College Opportunity. Previously, he was appointed to the California Council for the Humanities board in 1994 and served as Co-Chair from 1998 to 2001. He wrote, designed and curated the museum exhibition, "Country Voices, Three Generations of Family Farmers" which appeared at the Fresno Metropolitan Museum (1992) and the Japanese American National Museum (1993) in Los Angeles. He has a bachelors degree in sociology from U.C. Berkeley and a masters degree in community development from U.C. Davis and attended International University in Tokyo, Japan. Masumoto has been the key note speaker at many diverse conferences including International Association of Culinary Professionals, Culinary Institute of America, American Association of Museums, American Institute of Wine and Food, Dance USA, Ag. in the Classroom National Conference, Chamber Music Society of America, Calif. Teachers of English and Japanese American National Museum. He also was awarded a Breadloaf Writers Conference fellowship in 1996. He has also visited numerous schools delivering presentations and teaching in classes and was a writer in residence at Iolani School in Honolulu, Hawaii in 2004. Masumoto won the University of California, Davis “Award of Distinction” from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2003. He was a founding member of California Association of Family Farmers. He has served on the California Tree Fruit Agreement research board and has been a member of the Raisin Advisory Committee research board. Masumoto and his wife, Marcy Masumoto, EdD., (50), have two children, Nikiko (20) and Korio (14). They reside in an 90 year old farmhouse surrounded by their vineyards and orchards just outside of Del Rey, California which is 20 miles south of Fresno.

Audit Committee

George Vera

George has been with the Packard Foundation since 1997. He is currently vice president and chief financial officer. In Finance and Administration, George is responsible for the investment, accounting and finance, information technology, and facilities (including the Taaffe House) functions at the Foundation. He also functions as the primary staff liaison with the Board of Trustees Finance and Audit Committees and with external service providers including auditors, bankers, and investment managers and consultants. He also supports foundation-wide activities as a management committee and program executives team member. Before joining the Foundation, George was partner at Arthur Andersen. George holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College and a master's in business administration from Harvard Business School. He is a certified public accountant, Canadian chartered accountant, and certified fraud examiner, and holds the chartered financial analyst designation. George was appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to serve a three year term on the Advisory Committee on Tax Exempt and Government Entities, a committee that provides a venue for public input into critical tax administration issues. He is a member of the audit committee of the Board of the Northern California Grantmakers, audit committee chairman and board member of the California Water Service Company, and was former board member, now member, of the Foundation Financial Officers Group.

Investment Committee

Greg Ostroff

Greg Ostroff, CFA, is a former co-director of Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs, where he had also been head of the firms U.S. Stock Selection Committee, Director of U.S. Equity Research, Director of Asian Investment Research, a consumer-products/services-sector analyst and a development-team member for the Research Select Mutual Fund, and Managing Director of the Investment Fund for the Goldman Sachs Foundation. His prior Wall Street experience includes research positions in equities at Smith Barney and economics at Chase Manhattan Bank. Greg earned a B.A., Summa Cum Laude, in Economics at Rutgers University and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He is currently a director/advisor to several Bay Area foundations and non-profits. At home, he is a devoted husband and father of four as well as an avid cyclist and backyard farmer.

 

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